


We Are, We Are Not

by LupineCrown (Wolf_of_Lilacs)



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Book: Warriors Power of Three: Eclipse, Getting Together, Multi, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26323969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/LupineCrown
Summary: After returning from the mountains, Hollypaw has a lot to think about.
Relationships: Hollyleaf/Jayfeather/Lionblaze
Kudos: 13
Collections: RelationShipping 2020





	We Are, We Are Not

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toonphile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toonphile/gifts).



After they come back from the mountains, Hollypaw drifts through her apprentice training and duties with only half her attention. She spends nights—curled in the nest she and Lionpaw share, trying to figure out what her power could possibly be.

Can she run like the wind, faster than any cat? No, that can’t be right. If that were the case, then wouldn’t she be in WindClan? It has to be something more exciting.

Is it something to do with her memory? No, that doesn’t seem right, either. Cinderpaw always seems to remember things Hollypaw’s forgotten about training or prey.

Lionpaw and Jaypaw both seem so certain of theirs. Lionpaw is weighed down with it, each step like a prowl. If he weren’t her brother, Hollypaw would have begun to fear him.

“It’s just not the same anymore, is it?” she mews to him as the other apprentices meow excitedly over their honeycomb, then bat a feather from someone’s dinner around the den.

“It all seems trivial,” he agrees, burying his head under one of his large paws. She grooms his ears and waits for the others to quiet down.

Jaypaw, though, is as he has always been. He has always been separate from the rest of the Clan, both by their treatment of him and by, Hollypaw suspects, his power. He holds conversations as if he knows precisely how they’ll go, his shoulders hunched up, his tail twitching.

“You need to relax,” she tells him as he’s sorting herbs by himself. Leafpool’s out in the clearing, sharing tongues with Squirrelflight, and Hollypaw had taken the opportunity presented.

(No matter how many moons pass, Hollypaw can’t help a pinprick of guilt over being such a terrible medicine cat apprentice. If she’d never given it up, Jaypaw might have… But it isn’t worth thinking about.)

“I don’t need to do anything,” Jaypaw meows. “Except everything. No one around here listens to me.”

“Oh, poor you. Maybe if you didn’t act as if they should already know everything you do, then they’d be more receptive.” She really isn’t entirely sure what he’s referring to, but she believes him anyway.

He snorts disbelievingly and draws a leaf-wrapped bundle toward him. “Getting low on thyme,” he mews to himself.

“Do you know what my power might be?” If she doesn’t know, then surely he might.

“I don’t.” Setting the herbs aside, Jaypaw at least has the grace to run his tail down her flank in apology.

So, Hollypaw goes on, watching her brothers in quiet dismay as they move confidently through the Clan, their powers known to them, and all she can do is wait. For what, she can’t begin to guess.

*

The sun vanishes.

Hollypaw stares upward in dismay with all the rest. There is little care for Clan now, as they all press together and whimper. She hears some mew the names of mates and kits, but all she can think of are her brothers. She has no idea where they are. What if she never sees them again? What if, in this senseless battle where the sun went out, she’s lost them?

This is silly. She knows it, in a detached way. These are warriors who follow the Warrior Code. They wouldn’t kill, would they? And yet they’ve already attacked ThunderClan for no obvious reason. How far might they go?

(The WindClan cat Hollypaw had been fighting a moment ago trembles beside her, pressed close against her side.)

The sun returns.

There are yowls of relief, and cats jump apart, fur bristling. The battle doesn’t start again, but the moment of fearful camaraderie has passed. Her heart pounding in her ears, Hollypaw makes her way back to the hollow. “StarClan hid the sun. They disapprove of this battle!” She not certain who yowls it.

Jaypaw reaches the hollow just as Hollypaw is nosing through the gorse tunnel, Mousewhisker leaning heavily against him. “There you are,” he meows.

“Did StarClan hide the sun?” It’s the first question to come to mind, hissed as it is by injured cats already in the hollow.

“No. Are you injured? Don’t answer that. Go wait with the rest.”

She joins Poppyfrost and Mousewhisker, both of them looking as ragged as she feels. “Battle to the death and the sun going dark really put things into perspective,” Mousewhisker mews.

“How so?” Poppyfrost is hunched up, her head between her paws. Blood cakes the fur around her face.

“If the sun can go dark, then anything can happen. We could all end up in StarClan tomorrow, just as fast as you can say ‘fox dung’.”

“Now you’re sounding like an elder.”

“I beg to differ,” Mousefur snorts, walking by with a bundle of moss. “I’ve never said a cursed thing like that.”

Hollypaw lets the conversation lull her, until Lionpaw pads into the camp, covered in blood, fur standing on end, a wild gleam in his eyes. Then he halts, staring at something just out of her line of sight. “squirrelflight?”

Hollypaw heavers herself to her paws, peering around. Squirrelflight is at the edge of the camp, blood pooling around her. She lists heavily to one side, her eyes dull.

“How in StarClan did no one notice this?” There’s a flurry of activity as Jaypaw darts back to the medicine den to find more herbs, with Leafpool frisking about to gather moss. “If any of you would like to gather more bedding, I would appreciate it.”

Lionpaw goes eagerly. Hollypaw wonders if he’s injured at all. She can’t tell for all the blood.

Squirrelflight will live, Leafpool tells them later. Hollypaw, Lionpaw, and Jaypaw are curled beside Squirrelflight, the three of them huddled together in a clump of bracken stems.

Mousewhisker was right. Today really has put things into perspective. The three of them may be more powerful than StarClan, but they’re still only Clan cats, and there is so little they can do.

And how much time does any cat truly have?

Squirrelflight sleeps fitfully, but she sleeps. Hollypaw stretches. “Let’s go out for a bit,” she meows to her brothers. “Just to see if WindClan might be coming back.”

“They won’t,” Lionpaw yawns. “I’m tired—”

Perhaps something in her expression convinces him, because he’s scrabbling to his paws. Jaypaw doesn’t protest and follows.

They squeeze through the dirtplace tunnel and out into the forest. No sign of WindClan returning, just the normal sounds of prey and a breeze through the trees

“So what’s up?” Lionpaw meows.

Suddenly faced with trying to explain, Hollypaw starts to lose the nerve. “It’s just—” she begins, scuffing a paw against the ground.

Jaypaw nods. “It’s just that the battle was terrible and the sun disappeared, and you worry that something could happen to us.”

“They were all looking for their mates and kits when it went dark,” she explains. “All I could think of was the two of you.”

“Not Brambleclaw or Squirrelflight?” Jaypaw sounds almost teasing.

“Of course I thought of them, but not like I thought about you.” She looks from one to the other. They’re so different up close, her brothers one large and golden, the other small and gray. But right now their expressions are nearly identical, their heads slung low and their shoulders stiff. She thinks they’re both beautiful.

“You’re not interested in anyone else, are you?”

And of course it’s Lionpaw who’s stumbled into it, who’s never hesitated when it counted. Sweet Lionpaw.

Hollypaw looks over at Jaypaw, whose tail flicks disconsolately. He relaxes at her scrutiny and meows, “Took you long enough. I’ve been expecting this for moons.”

“You’re such a mouse-brain sometimes,” Hollypaw snaps, but there’s little heat in it. “I just… Is it right? What does the Code say? What would StarClan think?”

“Nothing in the Code about it. Well, not this. I’m a medicine cat. But no one needs to know.”

“We’re more powerful than StarClan,” Lionpaw meows. “What does it matter what they think?”

 _You might be_ , Hollypaw wants to say. She still doesn’t know what her power is. She hasn’t felt a thing. Instead, she beckons them both closer.

“Just this once, and then we’ll decide from there?”

They agree. And so the three of them curl together the way most cats only do with their mates, and Hollypaw feels them so close— _hers_ —and she never wants this to end.


End file.
